Stop the EU's legal war on web cookies

A new EU privacy law recently came into effect which criminalises over 90% of website owners. The law requires that websites ask visitors for prior consent to use most web cookies.

Nearly all websites use cookies, which are an extremely common technology for remembering anything about a visitor between webpages. Cookies are commonly used for logging in, sharing socially, commenting on pages, analytics and more.

This law is well intentioned but misguided. We're not against stronger privacy laws, but the current law is woefully unclear, punitive, and ignorant of the Internet at large.

Here are some industry reactions:

"It is so breathtakingly stupid that the normally law-abiding business may be tempted to bend the rules to breaking point." - OutLaw's editorial from 2009 http://bit.ly/6VZgd

"Enforcing this legislation - if it can even be enforced, so unworkable and technologically illiterate is the basis on which it has been conceived - will have disastrous effects on innovation and entrepreneurship throughout Europe and it will dramatically affect the livelihoods of publishers whose incomes come from advertising." - Wired http://bit.ly/lJQs4x

"This looks like a shambles doesn't it? Call me old-fashioned but the law should be drafted in such a way that it is possible for people to know which side of it they are on." - The Guardian http://bit.ly/mQKOnv

"If enforced his law will kill off the European startup industry stone dead, handing the entire sector to other markets and companies, and largely those in the US." - TechCrunch http://tcrn.ch/JC15c3

Changing the collective mind of the EU is a formidable, and possibly impossible task. But we can start by being heard. Sign this petition to show your objection to this law.